The wonder of breasts We love breasts, yet can't quite take them seriously. Breasts embarrass us. They're unpredictable. They appear out of nowhere in puberty, they get bigger in pregnancy, they're capable of producing prodigious amounts of milk, and sometimes they get sick. The urgency to know and understand breasts has never been greater. More tumours form in the breast than in any other organ, making breast cancer the most common malignancy in women worldwide. But breasts are often overlooked, at least for non-cancer scientific research. I wanted to know more, so I went to the 15th meeting of the International Society for Research in Human Milk and Lactation in Lima. Scientists used to think breast milk was sterile, like urine. Then there are the sugars. They don't feed us, but they do feed many types of beneficial bacteria that make a home in our guts and help us fight infections. A quick survey of what biotech companies are doing shows the range of benefits being attributed to human milk.
Faecal transplants used to cure Clostridium difficile 11 December 2011Last updated at 23:59 By James Gallagher Health reporter, BBC News Transplanting faecal matter from one person to another - the thought might turn your stomach, but it could be lifesaving. Some doctors are using the procedure to repopulate the gut with healthy bacteria, which can become unbalanced in some diseases. Dr Alisdair MacConnachie, who thinks he is the only UK doctor to carry out the procedure for Clostridium difficle infection, describes it as a proven treatment. He says it should be used, but only as a treatment of last resort. The logic is simple. C. difficile infection is caused by antibiotics wiping out swathes of bacteria in the gut. The first-choice solution, more antibiotics, does not always work and some patients develop recurrent infection. The theory is that by adding more bacteria to the bowels, they will compete with C. difficile bacteria and control the infection. The procedure Dr MacConnachie inserts a tube up the patient's nose and down to the stomach.
I had the bacteria in my gut analysed. And this may be the future of medicine | Science We are all familiar with "gut feelings", "gut reactions" and "gut instincts", but how much do we really know or care about our guts? As we become increasingly more aware of what we put in our stomachs, it's striking how ignorant we remain of what takes place in our intestines. And it turns out there is an awful lot going on down there. Microbiologists have made some startling advances in revealing our innermost secrets. It turns out that there is a complex ecosystem deep within us that is home to a fantastic diversity of life – of which very little belongs to our species. For most of us, suspicious of foreign bodies, it's a struggle to comprehend that at our very core we are less than – or rather much more than – human. That means there is a tremendous amount of us that is not, so to speak, us. Well, I wasn't much concerned about bacteria before I got the contents of my gut tested. "I realised I needed to study the whole canvas," he says. These fatty acids are beneficial to the body.
Human Microbiome Project - Overview Microscopic study of the healthy human body has demonstrated that microbial cells outnumber human cells by about ten to one. Until recently though, this abundant community of human-associated microbes remained largely unstudied, leaving their influence upon human development, physiology, immunity, and nutrition almost entirely unknown. The NIH Common Fund Human Microbiome Project (HMP) was established with the mission of generating research resources enabling comprehensive characterization of the human microbiota and analysis of their role in human health and disease. Traditionally, microorganisms have been studied as cultures in the laboratory. The NIH Human Microbiome Project is one of several international efforts designed to take advantage of large scale, high through multi ‘omics analyses to study the microbiome in human health. Development of a reference set of microbial genome sequences and preliminary characterization of the human microbiome
Humans: 10% Human and 90% Bacterial | Amped We are moving from a multi-decade focus on killing ALL bacteria via soaps, detergents, antibiotics and hand sanitizer, to a new understanding of the complex bacterial system in our bodies and in the world around us. We now understand that humans are 90% microbial but only 10% human. The average human has over 100 trillion microbes in and on their body, and many of the latest discoveries are challenging previously held ideas about good and bad bacteria. We are witnessing the shift from a World ruled by the antibacterial obsessed and non-stop antibacterial marketing, to one that has a heightened awareness of the importance of the microbial ecosystem (the microbiome). In sparks and honey’s recent report, Time to Get Dirty: Why the Ancient Wisdom of Microbes is the Future of Health, we explore five emerging areas that are shaping the conversations and debate around the microbiome. To learn more about the world of the microbe, download our free report here.
Alien-like life forms that make up 90% of our living cells By Daily Mail Reporter Updated: 16:18 GMT, 19 May 2011 We are only 10% human the rest is pure microbe, reveals microbiologist You may think these alien-looking bacteria would be unwelcome guests, but these lifeforms actually make up 90 per cent of the living cells in our bodies. As these incredible CGI images show, the human body is home to trillions of weird and wonderful lifeforms. Tube shaped e.coli use their three tails to swim vigorously up and down our guts, while salmonella which are famous for food poisoning scares live happily on our skin with no ill effects to us. Computer artwork of bacteria (blue and green) on human skin. A magnified conceptual visualization of multiple coccus bacteria on a cellular surface. Our relationship with the single-celled friends is so strong that some scientist have come to regard us and our hitchhikers as one human-bacteria super-organism. Cork Institute of Technology lecturer, Dr Roy D. Computer artwork of chains of Streptococcus pneumoniae bacteria.